Detroit the Microcosm of America December 17, 2008
Posted by sunlightmyfire in business, cars, development, economics.Tags: auto industry, detroit auto, development, electric car, john husband, millenials, Obama, san francisco, saving america, wirearchy
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Why is responsibly handling Detroit important?
The city represents a potential outcome for America in real time. The citizens of Detroit are just wild about the demise of the Big Three. Economics dictates that unprofitable companies won’t succeed in an open marketplace. As the current global market is wide open with products, like electric cars, being introduced now, as of December 15th in China when the BYD, a $21,000 plug in hybrid, rolled out for consumption. Big 3 remains at least one stage behind, with Volt introduction scheduled for 2010 at a higher price point. The business model in Detroit can’t compete with the BYD or the rumored Indian creation the Oreva Super. Have you hugged your Smart Car today? Little Montreal Smarties have zoomed through the streets of Montreal for nearly a decade. The Big 3 could win if they introduce a cheap electric model, the 2.0 if you will, tomorrow, the next day, or very shortly after that. Is that a realistic expectation?
The business model of the big car companies just can’t compete with the rapidly changing marketplace, which is already producing the next desired auto products. Say I’m in the market for a personal transportation device. I have a lot of options and I’m aware that I have a choice to make. I’m not suggesting that someone somewhere isn’t going to need an F-150. It just won’t be me. As a city dweller, I don’t need an F-150 everyday to hall my crap around town. I make due with a backpack. MacAir owners only need a large purse (lugging my laptop, obviously).
America as I know it deals with issues similar to those ingrained societal issues found in Detroit. We should broach the urban social issues of the city as they impact the potential for progress in the city. Let’s just call it beef, and it’s everywhere. I’m currentlt surrounded by social beef between English and French speakers. The end thought is that smart people with good ideas don’t have beef. And it helps that we speak second and third languages (though lots of us have trouble spelling and have been spell check dependant since a young age). All problems can be overcome. America has already proved this fact, hola Obama, it can happen in Detroit too.
This is where the Millennials come in. Many of us are capable of directional thinking; starting with an idea and finding out the pathway to the conclusion, discovery or incorporation of the end into current psyche. We can do it really fast too. Jon Husband proposes the idea of the Wirearchy as the paradigm shift noticeable to the youth set and slightly obscured from the view of the older generation, more ingrained in the ways of the traditional past. From great idea onset to identifying exactly who might be interesting consultants and problem solvers, to finding out what parts are necessary, creating and implementing the plan and producing whatever the project happens to be attempting to complete happens more quickly than many people even realize as long as you’ve got someone from the hybrid generation bridging the gap. (That’s us by the way, go Millineals go.)
This is a big deal. If anyone is going to help put Detroit back on the path into the future, put a lot of quick thinking creators together with the single idea, technology will enable the new idea to go from germination to production a lot more quickly than anyone in Detroit currently believes is possible. Detroit is a mess right now. Citizens are distressed, losing their jobs, fearing the loss of their jobs… Mostly the adults- those people previously relied on to safeguard the industry of the city. The inner argument is that the world changed too rapidly for the juggernaut sized company to slow down and make a turn. Well, the market turned and at this point, staying the course leads to chapter 11. Restructuring is going to happen weather it’s government mandated or not. Pushing for a profitable and competitive restructuring is the best thing the government can do for the city of Detroit and America. That’ll involve sifting through the plethora of amazing ideas and enabling enough of them to develop (ie employee talent) that the market will enable the rest. Time is of the essence. Some people understand more than others.
Forward thinking idea completers are the wave of the future. And the future is here.
People actually believe this in San Francisco. I believe that of San Francisco.
Down with the Old – In with the New and Improved Auto Industry December 13, 2008
Posted by sunlightmyfire in business, development, economics, green living, politics, public transporation, renewable energy.Tags: Better Place, business, denmark, depression, Detroit, development, DONG energy, Electric cars, energy secretary, ladysmith black mombazo, nobel laureate, shai agassi, steven chu, wind farms
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I know Detroiters are depressed right now. The Titanic is sinking and there aren’t any lifeboats, or life preservers, or lifesavers (go Ladysmith Black Mombazo)… The region is running scared. Just remember, cockroaches still run around post nuclear fallout. Maybe bloggers are like cockroaches…
Developments abound! Seriously folks. After a forest fire, all the new life that springs up from the earthy floor (watch Planet Earth Forests) … or after a long winter, spring happens. I know all that gooey positivity doesn’t pay January rent, but let’s set up the mindset. Attitude is altitude.
Steven Chu, Nobel laureate in Physics, pro environmental veteran, new Energy Secretary and coordinator of climate policies. We’ve got a green thumb in the white house. This is sweet because new ideas will be heard, good ideas will be picked up, the more ideas the better, and then we’ll get to pick (let America decide, call in and vote). New ideas = more ideas = better.
DONG Energy and Wind is opening a huge addition to their windfarm. Ten more turbines have been added to an existing farm of twenty allowing Denmark to power 35,000 homes with wind power. DONG Energy and Wind are putting up an offshore windfarm in 2009. Get in on that goodness.
And finally, smart people unite. The Detroit auto model is so 20th century. (Which is why it’s failing in this, the 21st century.) There’s hope. I’ve already written about Better Place but I’m going to again because the idea is so big and amazing that I’ve become an electric car grid evangelist already. Shai Agassi worked as a software exec in Silicon Valley and along with his crew of smart people has come up with a fantastic idea to change the world. One hold up to the electric vehicle concept was the battery- how to recharge, how long would it take, where would this happen etc. Agassi changed the entire question. Understanding that everyone would need to recharge, he figured that recharging stations should be quick and easy- so he decided that at every station, the battery could just get swapped with a new full battery. Brilliant. In and out fully charged. His company, Better Place, has contracts in Hawaii, will test in Israel and Australia and is getting bigger and bigger by the minute. Agassi sees a future for us all in new ideas using this technology stuff that we all love. Shaken, not stirred. And the result will be a profitable cocktail for us all. Sustainable mobility guys, sustainable mobility.
Solar Panels Fly December 10, 2008
Posted by sunlightmyfire in business, development, economics, green living, public transporation, renewable energy, solar energy.Tags: airplane, development, economy, innovation, must have, solar panels
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The new billionaire must have- the Hy-Bird. Made in France. It’s a beautiful solar paneled airplane for adventuring!
I believe we’re all adults here and can handle reading French. Just try, you’ll get through it.
Beautifully designed web presence.
Infrastructure is SEXY December 8, 2008
Posted by sunlightmyfire in business, development, economics, politics, public transporation.Tags: businesses, development, infrastructure, marines, Obama, politics, rebuild america
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Not my line. Who is that chick anchor on MSNBC? She said it first.
Obama will put Americans to work rebuilding America. Novel idea. Way to learn from FDR. I love that Obama is so smart that he steals really great ideas from really smart people!! The best part is- America definitely needs the makeover. In the last two years, bridges have collapsed in Minnesota and San Francisco (and that’s off the top of my head, no research needed). Putting in new public transportation lines would be such a great idea to add to the infrastructure mix… (go Phoenix, AZ!)
Now when all those beefy marines return from overseas, they’ll have jobs using their buffness to rebuild things at home. It’ll keep them occupied instead of letting them idle and get drunk and start freaking out. Or keeping me and my friends from entering clubs in San Diego with our out of state drivers licenses. (That’s a story actually. We were denied entrance to a bar because our licenses were from Michigan… Stupid marines… but they’re cute…)
17 going on 18 August 27, 2008
Posted by sunlightmyfire in development, family.Tags: cousins, development, FROSH, Montreal
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My Vancouver-born first cousin, Samara, is in town. She’s checking out schools for next year and helping her mom move her other grandmother into an old folks chalet. I get to show her around but as a 17 year old, how deep into the rabbit hole will she go? I mean, I had a significant resume of success a 17but on the other hand, as a sheltered prep school kid, it took moving out to University in order for the final reveal on young existence to occur.
At 17, I had never been to detention, kept my shirt tucked in and had taken my high school choir to Europe after my graduation ceremony and still led by example, no drinking, no staying out late, no hitting on cute German boys… I made sure that everyone made it back on the bus in time. One week prior to my Montreal departure, everything changed. Having never even set eyes on the hyped Christmas trees, I smoked for the first time at the camp fire behind my best friend’s house. After having successfully navigated myself down level one into the underbelly of the world, I knew I could take it from there – said my thank yous and good byes, packed up and headed out.
Frosh week at McGill changed my life; booze, boys, a 3 day controlled bender (my first, supervised by an experienced student who had been there before, perhaps even the previous year) I achieved my corruption goals quickly, nothing ever too stupid, but definitely stupid enough. Over 2000 teenagers, freshly freed from their parents, attempting to shed their lingering high school images and get wasted collectively, perhaps for the first time, making friends, exploring a new city, trying to remember and hopefully making a somewhat/positive impression memorable just long enough to be able to walk down the street and yell, “Hey you! You were in my Frosh group remember? How’s school going so far?… Ya, I’ve decided not to drink for a month… You too? Ya, that was crazy fun!”
Although my own personal bundle of issues may be a work in progress, I take pride in my 17 year old success. I’ve told my cousin lots. No holds barred. She’s eating it up, she wants to come to Montreal for University. Excellent! Sharing tidbits to a captive audience is such a joy.
And just as an aside- along with the unique, relatively unknown, and fantastically free fun available any night of the week (except if it’s raining), Montreal remains a cheap, great city for students, communal but definitely big enough to grow into. I kept attempting to share my Frosh experience with my American friends, all developing and growing through their own first weeks of school, but alas, it was the first of many untranslateable Montreal-centricities that I absolutely love about this city.
